Enik Do Something!
by Marc C
Summary: This is my way of resolving the events of Circle with the rest of the series, through Enik's point of view. This episode takes place just before the events of the episode "Circle." Note: Dialogue comes from "The Stranger," "The Search," and "Circle."


**ENIK DO SOMETHING**

By Marc C.

CRAMBAM

"Daddy do something!"

"AAAAAAH!"

Enik stood in his chamber baffled. For some reason, the time-doorway was repeating the rafting accident that sent Rick Marshall, his son Will, and his daughter Holly over a waterfall on Earth and into another universe, which they named the Land of the Lost.

Like the humans, Enik did not belong in this place. He is an Altrusian, a telepathic lizard-like being from an advanced race, native to this land but from another era, centuries in the past.

Both Enik and the Marshalls were stranded here accidentally, arriving via a time-doorway—a portal that allows for such travel, intentional or not.

Time-doorways are controlled by fourth-dimensional nodes—colored crystals whose energies power the entire ecosystem in the Land of the Lost. The crystals rest on a matrix table, and if one can find the correct sequence, they can go anywhere—in any universe. The Altrusians mastered the use of the time-doorways, but something consistently prevented Enik from returning home.

It took a while, but Enik was finally confident that he found the correct combination to his proper time and place. Yet when he tried to input the coordinates, he found that the time-doorway was locked on the Marshalls' accident.

Glitches in the system were not uncommon, especially given that the doorways were eons old. The chamber in which Enik stood was located in what the Marshalls called The Lost City, built by the Altrusian people millennia ago. Things changed so much over the centuries that when Enik first arrived, he mistakenly thought he was in his distant past.

"Daddy do something!"

"AAAAAAH!"

The Marshalls screamed, descending out of control. As they were halfway down the waterfall, the scene in the doorway reset to the beginning of the cycle, with the humans on their yellow raft, unaware of the danger that was yet to come.

What was astonishing was that there was no visible time-doorway as the Marshalls met their fate. They should not have entered the Land of the Lost, yet they did. Enik understood the problem—it was a paradox. The time-doorway was stuck on this particular accident because with no portal, the humans should have died. Yet they survived, having arrived safely in the Land of the Lost. It was as if they experienced two opposite events at the same time, and the time-doorway could not handle the dueling outcomes.

Enik recalled his studies of temporal mechanics as he continued to observe the time-doorway. Though it appeared to be the case, he was not watching a replay of past events. Yes, from Enik's point of view, he was observing the past, but to the Marshall family on the raft, it was their present. The Marshalls on the raft were the same people as the Marshalls Enik knew, just at different points in time. What Enik was witnessing was live.

He briefly considered preventing the Marshalls' destiny. Conceivably, were it not for the danger of the earthquake, Enik could go through the portal, find himself on Earth, prevent the family from getting on the raft, and alter events so that they never enter the Land of the Lost. No accident? No time-loop in his chamber.

Unfortunately, the cycle began after their raft was in the water, too late to warn the family before the quake, so it was impossible to safely prevent the whole incident.

He _could_ make sure that no portal opened as the Marshalls went over the waterfall, but then they would be killed on the rocks below.

Either way, he quickly concluded that neither action would resolve the paradox. If the Marshalls never enter the Land of the Lost, the parties never meet. If they never meet, Enik would not take action to prevent them from entering the Land of the Lost, creating another paradox. No one would be helped, and the time-doorway would still be stuck in a loop, useless to anyone.

"Daddy do something!"

"AAAAAAH!"

But even if he had that choice, Enik would not allow the Marshalls to die. Thanks to the family, the Altrusian would not take the dispassionate route, even if it were easier and more logical. No. He valued what he learned from the humans. They taught him the importance of compassion and of sacrifice. They did this not just with words, but with action. Solving this paradox would be a great opportunity to put what he learned into practice. He would come up with a solution, but the Marshalls would not be killed. As he worked through the problem, Enik thought back to how each Marshall affected what must be done.

Rick Marshall's influence on Enik began with their very first meeting, even though that initial encounter was filled with animus and conflict. Shortly after arriving in the Land of the Lost, Enik was unaware of his true fate. As one of the keepers of the time-portals, he was traveling through the doorways when an unknown disturbance caused a distortion in his journey, trapping him in what he thought was his world's distant past.

His best hope to return home was the Mageti, a device that could locate, operate and even repair time-portals. The Mageti was shaped like a clear pyramid and was powered in its center by a fourth-dimensional node. Given the dangers of traveling through space and time, Enik's people built a defense mechanism in the Mageti so that a warlike race could not use it to conquer other worlds by force. Hostile thoughts could overload the device, causing it to self-destruct.

Enik was in a cavern in the Land of the Lost when he first met the Marshalls, who had discovered his Mageti. He watched as they used it to protect themselves against who he thought were his ancestors—violent, unintelligent, primitive versions of the Altrusian people. The Marshalls called them Sleestak, though he did not know why.

After Enik sent the Sleestak away, he turned his attention toward the humans so he could retrieve the Mageti for his own use. His telepathic abilities allowed him to communicate with the Marshalls in their language, both verbally and through his thoughts. Will Marshall, the elder of the two children, refused to surrender the device. Rather than return the Mageti to Enik, the teenager tried to force the Altrusian to help the humans return to _their_ universe. Enik explained that he did not know the coordinates to their world and that the effort to find them would drain the power of the Mageti so that _he_ could not return home. But Will would not listen, and his increasingly aggressive thoughts broke the device just as the Altrusian makers anticipated.

Will showed immediate regret, but with the Mageti's crystal destroyed, Enik figured he would be stranded in the past forever. The power source was irreplaceable, or so he thought. But then the Marshalls told him about The Lost City, where he could find more fourth-dimensional nodes and perhaps repair the Mageti. Intrigued, Enik asked the humans to take him there, and when they did, he learned the terrible truth.

The Lost City was actually the ruins of Enik's home. He did not travel into his past. He traveled into his future, and his people, who prided themselves on their ability to control their emotions, had somehow violently destroyed each other and devolved into the Sleetstak. Suddenly Enik no longer just _wanted_ to return to his people, he _needed_ to return to them to warn them of the war and destruction that awaited them if they didn't learn to truly curb their anger.

With the humans' guidance, Enik found his way to the time-doorway chamber, where it would be difficult, but not impossible to find his way home. Under the circumstances, figuring out the proper coordinates to his own time required great concentration and solitude, a fact he expressed to the Marshalls as he asked them to leave so that he could concentrate.

"Daddy do something!"

"AAAAAAH!"

The child's screams as the family went over the waterfall echoed into the chamber, momentarily jarring Enik away from his memories and back to the present, as he unconsciously grabbed the necklace he wore around his neck. His necklace contained a light jewel that was also a companion piece to the Mageti, and he was trying to charge it in that first encounter when Will Marshall grabbed it out of his hand in yet another emotional demand for the Altrusian's aid.

Will's latest action was the last straw for Enik. In response, he used his telepathic abilities to force the return of his property by showing the family their greatest fears. As each Marshall saw the illusion of their worst nightmare, they felt an intense agony, but before Enik retrieved his jewel, Rick Marshall said something to him that changed his attitude toward both the humans and toward what he must do to help his people.

He recalled Rick's words quite vividly. "What you're doing to us now, attacking our minds, isn't this just as bad as the physical violence that eventually destroyed your people?"

The question gave the Altrusian pause, as he weakened his mental hold on the family. "You gave me no choice," said Enik.

But Rick was quick to counter. "Enik, when you go back to the others, to explain to them how to keep their anger in check, tell them that it's all right to destroy those who oppose them, as long as it's done dispassionately—without feeling, without anger." The words confused Enik, who released the mind-grip completely as he told Rick that he did not understand the human's point.

Rick continued. "It is not the absence of hate that will save your people, but it is the presence of compassion, and of feeling. If you can't grasp that, then your race is doomed forever, no matter what you do."

Those words stuck with Enik. He must be able to act compassionately because if he does not, he could never show his people a different way.

The Marshalls eventually relented and gave Enik his chance to try to get home, but for various reasons, he was unable to do so. The Mageti could not be repaired with the crystals in The Lost City. Without the device, Enik had to manually perform the calculations to find the combination to his world, but even when he completed them, the doorway was useless while it was locked on the Marshall paradox. Yet thanks to Rick's words, Enik knew that whatever he did to resolve the problem must involve compassion.

"Daddy do something!"

"AAAAAAH!"

Each attempt to return home required a lot of energy, and after each failure, the crystals on the matrix table that operated the time-doorway needed to recharge. The extra time Enik spent in this era led him to have other encounters with the humans, as he recalled the time in which Will Marshall became the next person to greatly influence his mission.

Once, just as Enik was about to start the final countdown to activate the dimensional doorway to his world, the teenager burst into his chamber to ask for help. The timing could not have been worse, but Will explained that Rick had been badly hurt experimenting with crystals, and without Enik, his father would not survive.

The Altrusian declined Will's request, and logically explained his position, but Will would not take "no" for an answer. When Enik repeated that he could not leave due to the difficulty in opening the time-vortex, the human charged him, forcing the Altrusian to telepathically push Will backward.

Enik was blunt. "I can either stay here and help you or return to my own world and time. I choose to return home. You must do without my help."

As Will desperately begged for his father's life, Enik indeed felt regret over the thought of Rick Marshall's impending death, but the Altrusian remained focused on returning home and on his mission. Though Rick's words about compassion echoed in his mind, Enik argued that even taking a few minutes to help could jeopardize his one chance to return to his own time and to prevent his race's destruction.

Before Will could plead some more, the time-doorway activated. The two watched as the sequence moved from world to world until unexpectedly, the doorway stopped on Earth. Enik saw the look of happiness on Will's face as the human realized he was looking at his proper place and time. The Altrusian thought that if he could not help the boy's father, he could at least send Will back to Earth.

What Enik could not understand was why Will hesitated. Though the doorway could only be held open for a few more seconds, he would not go through. In that first meeting, Will clearly revealed that returning to his proper home was his greatest desire. Oddly, Enik found himself quite annoyed. He insisted that Will go home, and reminded the teenager that he may never get another chance. The Altrusian was convinced that holding the door to Earth open for Will was a perfect example of the compassion that Rick taught him. But the boy would not go, adamantly refusing to leave his father and his sister behind. What could have been his motive?

Suddenly Enik came to a conclusion. "You are trying to shame me," he accused Will. Will did not understand, so Enik explained further. "Your self-control cannot be stronger than mine. I will not allow it."

But it was Will's turn to explain. "Human beings stick together, especially when there's trouble. That's just the way we are." When Enik asked if that was their law, Will stated that it was just how most humans live.

Enik's frustration grew. "You _are_ trying to shame me."

He turned off the power in the chamber. When Will asked what he was doing, Enik replied, "If you will not go through that doorway, you are making a sacrifice. I cannot allow your sacrifice to be greater than mine." He declared that he must show as much self-control as Will did. That is Altrusian law.

Enik followed Will to the family's cave and saved Rick's life. As he returned to his chamber, he pondered what had happened. These two human males, in two encounters, had altered his way of thinking. Compassion alone would not save his people. Doing so would also require sacrifice, but to humans, a sacrifice was more than just self-control. Sacrifice was selflessness and putting others' needs above your own. Will sacrificed his greatest wish to help his father.

If Enik could get home, he could teach these lessons to his people, and perhaps save them.

_If_ he could get home.

"Daddy do something!"

"AAAAAAH!"

Once again, Enik watched the yellow raft go over the waterfall, a solemn reminder that until he solved the paradox and freed the doorway from repeating the humans' accident, he could not go anywhere.

But what was he supposed to do?

So far, Enik's only idea involved killing the family, which would fail anyway. If the situation were reversed, these humans, while violent and primitive, would not accept Enik's death, even if it guaranteed them a return to Earth. They would try to find a more compassionate solution.

Enik continued to work out the problem in his head. He turned his thoughts to what would happen if somehow, he could manipulate the doorways to give the Marshalls what they truly wanted—to return home. After all, that would be the _most_ logical example of compassion.

The Law of Conservation of Temporal Momentum was the key. If someone enters the Land of the Lost, someone of equal mass and temporal energy must leave, and vice versa. Though any three humans on Earth within a century of the Marshall family would qualify, it would be most efficient if the humans on the raft were exchanged with their counterparts currently in this land.

Though finding the combination to Earth was extremely difficult, the nature of the current paradox would allow Enik to do so briefly. If just as the cycle was ending, a time-doorway could be opened, the humans would fall into it as they plunged down the waterfall. Their lives would be saved, but they would be trapped between worlds, unable to enter the Land of the Lost until three humans exited.

Simultaneously, a doorway to Earth would open in Enik's chamber, allowing the present-day Marshalls to return to their home. Once they do, their counterparts would be released from limbo and deposited into the Land of the Lost.Paradox resolved.

Unfortunately, though the result was desirable, it was not an option due to Holly Marshall, who like her father and brother, affected what Enik needed to do.

In his quest to return to his own time, Enik often required solitude. Sometimes there were complex equations that needed to be resolved outside of the time-doorway staging area, and when that happened, Enik retreated to deep in The Lost City to the Library of Skulls to use its resources. However, he still monitored what was going on in his chamber.

On one such occasion, he became aware of the tenacious humans experimenting with the time-doorways. He observed as Holly Marshall separated from her father and brother while the elder humans tried random combinations on the matrix table. Eventually, they noticed the child's absence and went to look for her. While they searched for Holly, a human woman entered the Land of the Lost. Though he did not interfere, Enik followed the entire incident remotely. He learned that the woman was a future version of Holly, who used a time-doorway to return to her past to inspire her younger self and to give the child enough courage to save her family from the Sleestak.

Enik did not know the circumstances upon which she would meet her fate, but he did know that at some point in the future, Holly Marshall must become educated in the workings of the time-doorways. Therefore, if the girl returned to her own time and place before acquiring that knowledge, where humans were centuries away from learning about time-portals, Holly the adult would not be able to return to her past to help Holly the child, creating yet _another_ paradox and solving nothing.

How she was to fulfill her destiny was a question for another day, but Holly could not be allowed to return to her world at this time. Ironically, the best solution was not the correct one.

The frustration grew. Each solution that Enik considered was unacceptable. All possible answers so far would either fail to resolve the paradox or would cause another one.

"Daddy do something!"

"AAAAAAH!"

It was time to move in a new direction.

For a moment, the Altrusian's mind shifted to the importance of fate and destiny. All of these thoughts about preserving the timeline made him briefly rethink his mission. Perhaps it was selfish of Enik to try to save his people. If he succeeds, the timeline would change so drastically that all the events he experienced would play out much differently. He even considered that he would cease to exist. Yet when weighing these costs against the benefits of preventing the mass destruction of the Altrusians, his second thoughts quickly vanished. After all, if Will Marshall could sacrifice his chance to return home for his family, Enik could sacrifice his existence for his entire race.

The task at hand would be good training for Enik's overall mission. Once back in his own time, he would have to come up with a way to save his people without causing a paradox. Plus, if he _could_ return home, there would be greater technology and potentially other Altrusian minds to help. Maybe they could think of a way to merge the timelines so that he could retain his experiences while preventing the Altrusian cataclysm.

Suddenly Enik had his answer to the Marshall paradox! If he were human, he would have let out an emotional outburst of celebration. But the stoic Altrusian merely nodded to himself as he formulated his exact plan.

The solution was so simple that he was surprised he did not think of it sooner.

He revisited his idea of sending the family home, with one significant change. To preserve Holly's future, Enik needed to direct the exit point of the time-doorway to Earth that opens in his chamber so that it intersects with the entrance point of the time-doorway that he opens halfway down the waterfall. The two sets of humans would all be in the same portal at the same time, where their temporal energies would merge them into one family. The newly combined Marshalls would simply arrive in the Land of the Lost as before and would relive their early adventures.

Because the Law of Conservation of Temporal Momentum would be satisfied in such an unorthodox manner, history would be rewritten so that the portal over the waterfall always opened in the new timeline—even without Enik's help. The paradox would never happen and the time-doorway would never lock. The merged Marshalls would presumably remain in the Land of the Lost long enough for Holly to fulfill her destiny.

The only historical change would be the existence of the paradox itself, which was minor enough so that Enik could use fourth-dimensional nodes to protect his memories from changes in the timeline. He would be the only one to remember any of these events. All would be as it was before, except when history reaches the point where Enik discovers the paradox, he will suddenly remember it. In theory, he would not have to do anything in the new timeline, but preserving his memories would allow him to retain what he learned as he resumed his own journey.

With the solution in hand, all Enik required was the presence of the Marshalls that he knew. His plan was both flawless and logical. But then he considered that the Marshalls were human and not motivated by logic. They may not like the idea of merging with their counterparts. They might not believe that they would be safe.

The family had once been badly tricked by the Sleestak, and though Enik's relationship with the humans was much more friendly, they might not trust him unconditionally. He concluded they would not willingly go into the time-doorway unless they were certain they were returning to their world. Therefore, he decided that he must convince them to enter the staging area without alerting them to the merger. It was the only way.

One last problem existed—Altrusians do not lie. It was against the code to do so. Thus, Enik had to make a decision. He sincerely believed that outright truth would cause his plan to fail. For the final time, he thought about the lessons he learned from the humans and how he could apply them in practice. His solution demonstrated compassion. To implement it now required sacrifice. He must sacrifice his code against lying to make sure the endgame is achieved. Lying would not be something he would do lightly, but in the instant case, he had no choice.

He resolved to convince the family that they were returning to their world. Technically, he told himself that he would not be lying. Knowing what he did of Holly's future, he truly believed that at some point, the resilient Marshalls would find their way home—they would just take a different path. Besides, the merger _would_ take place inside the portal on Earth. He was just omitting the details.

All he had to do was show the family the paradox and explain to them that the choices were for Enik to either cause their deaths or to send them home. Given those options, he could lead the Marshalls to the conclusion he wanted, making the exchange with their counterparts seem like their own idea. He was confident the highly emotional humans would then enter the doorway without objection.

The plan was ready.

A few days later, Enik was in his chamber when he heard the Sleestak hissing, an unexpected sound since they were in their dormant season. The only way they would be awake would be if someone disturbed them while they were in hibernation. He figured that only the humans would do that, and he was quickly proven right as Will Marshall stumbled into the time-doorway chamber, on his back, with his knife drawn and ready to defend himself against the approaching Sleestak. Realizing that he finally had his chance to put his plan into motion, Enik stepped in, placed his hand on Will's shoulder, and said, "that will not be necessary."

As both looked at the Sleestak, Enik said, "they cannot harm you Will Human."

"Then why don't you tell _them_ that," Will replied, ignoring the Altrusian's mistake on his last name.

Enik waved his hand, telepathically activating a force-field that kept the Sleestak out of the room. "That will keep them out. It is unwise to disturb them during the sleeping season. It will only make them angry."

"They're always angry," Will retorted. "Hey Enik," he added, "We thought you'd be gone by now."

"No. I have been unable to leave. Come, I will show you why." And as the young human followed, Enik put his plan into motion.


End file.
